Man Linux: Main Page and Category List

NAME

       workman - play audio compact discs

SYNOPSIS

       workman  [  generic-tool-arguments  ] [ -bCdehnovX ] [ -c device ] [ -D
       file ] [ -f N ] [ -l n ] [ -p pidfile ] [ -s cmd ] [ -V n ]

DESCRIPTION

       workman is a graphical tool  for  playing  audio  compact  discs  on  a
       Unix/X11  system  with  a  CD  ROM  drive.  It has most of the features
       available  on  standalone  CD  players,  such  as   a   shuffle   mode,
       programmable  playlists, and elapsed/remaining timers.  But it also has
       extra features, foremost of which is the ability to  store  information
       about  CDs  in  a database, then automatically extract that information
       when the CD is inserted later.  Workman stores the artist’s  name,  the
       disc  title,  the  names of individual tracks, and even remembers which
       tracks you don’t want to hear!  All in an easy-to-use, attractive  OPEN
       LOOK graphical interface.

       This man page may be out of date. If you have further questions, please
       run workman with the -h or -?  option for some terse  help  or  consult
       the HTML documentation in the HTML directory.

OPTIONS

       generic-tool-arguments
              WorkMan  should  accept  the generic tool arguments described in
              xview(1).  The exception is the -Ws argument,  which  can  cause
              problems  such as the CD Info/About/Goodies buttons being whited
              out.  Note that olwm’s "Save Workspace" menu option puts  a  -Ws
              argument  in  your  .openwin-init  file;  you should edit it and
              remove -Ws and the two numbers following it.

              Of particular note is the  -scale  option,  which  controls  the
              window  size.  Use -scale small to shrink the window so it takes
              less screen space.

       -geometry [+|-]x[+|-]y
              Set WorkMan’s position  on  the  screen.   Do  not  try  to  use
              -geometry  to  resize  the window; it won’t work and can mess up
              the display.  If the Y coordinate is negative  (e.g.   -geometry
              +100-50) the window will be positioned that many pixels from the
              bottom of the screen and will grow  and  shrink  from  the  top,
              rather  than  the bottom; this prevents the controls from moving
              around  when  multiline  track  titles  are  displayed,  and  is
              frequently  used  with  the  -l  0 option.  Note that the window
              manager will add its title bar and push the  window  down.   Use
              something  like  -geometry  +0-38  to position the window at the
              bottom of the screen.  38 is the height of the olwm border;  use
              other values for other window managers.

       -d     Don’t  display  any  title information in the main window.  This
              results in a smaller main window.   The  title  information  can
              still be seen and edited using the CD Info popup.  If -d is used
              twice, title  information  will  be  displayed  only  if  it  is
              available; the default is to display "Unknown CD name", "Unknown
              artist",  and  "Unknown  track  name"  when  the   corresponding
              information is unavailable.

       -D filename
              Set  the  location  of  the  CD database file.  This is a colon-
              separated list of filenames.  This option overrides the value of
              the  WORKMANDB  environment  variable  and the workman.db.shared
              resource if either is present.  See the ENVIRONMENT section  for
              more details.

       -h     Display a summary of options.

       -b     Toggle  the  use  of  Dismiss  buttons  on all popups and a Quit
              button on the main window.  Useful for users of window  managers
              other  than  olwm.   On Sun and DEC systems, Dismiss buttons are
              missing by default; on HP systems, they are shown by default.

       -c device
              Use a device other than the default. View the file  config.h  to
              find out which is the default device for your platform. If there
              is no default device given, the default will be the first  drive
              found.   This  option  is  useful if the CD drive is on a second
              SCSI controller, or more  than  one  drive  is  present  on  the
              system.

       -s cmd Send  a  command to a running workman process.  Valid values are
              stop, play, pause, back, forward, and  eject.   Only  the  first
              character  is  examined,  except  in  the case of play and pause
              (which require at  least  two  characters).   mute  and  go  are
              aliases for pause and play, respectively.

       -o     This  option  prevents  the  Solaris 2.1 version of workman from
              spawning a background job to keep the CD device open.  There  is
              a  bug in Solaris 2.1 that causes the CD player to stop when its
              device is opened,  unless  some  other  process  on  the  system
              already has the device open.  When this option is specified, the
              CD will stop playing if workman is exited then restarted.   When
              the background job is present (-o is absent) the eject button on
              the CD player does not work even after  quitting  from  workman.
              The background job isn’t started under Solaris 2.2 if the volume
              manager is running.

       -l n   Reserve some lines for track titles in the main window.  If n is
              a positive number, that many lines of track title will always be
              displayed, even if some are blank.   If  n  is  zero,  the  main
              window  will grow and shrink to accomodate multiline titles.  If
              n is negative (the default), the  main  window  will  grow  when
              necessary,  but  will never shrink, even when a shorter title is
              subsequently displayed.

       -e     Check once for the presence of a CD at startup.   If  no  CD  is
              present, wait for the user to select the square (stop) icon from
              the main window.  The default is to  check  for  a  CD  every  5
              seconds;  on  some  SunOS  versions,  the CD-ROM driver prints a
              message to the console every time the  tool  checks  for  a  CD.
              After  a  CD  has been detected once, workman will revert to its
              default behavior  (since  the  driver  message  only  occurs  if
              workman  has  not yet found a CD in the drive.)  Specify -e more
              than once to disable checking for CD insertion permanently.

       -X     Exit automatically when the CD is ejected.

       -p file
              Write the program’s process ID to a different file.  By default,
              the  PID is written to "/tmp/.wm_pid-<host>" to allow signals to
              be sent more easily (see the SIGNALS  section  below.)  "<host>"
              will  be  replaced  by  the name of the machine which workman is
              running on.

       -n     No file locking.  On some systems, workman’s use of file locking
              is  a  significant  performance  hit (and on older systems, file
              locking didn’t work too well; on  those  machines,  workman  can
              freeze up when it tries to lock the database file.)  Use of this
              option is not recommended when several people share  a  database
              via  NFS;  if  two people save CD entries to the database at the
              same time and one of them is not using file locking, one or both
              of the new entries may be erased or stored incorrectly.

              Apply  Sun  patch 100075 to your system (and your fileserver, if
              you’re NFS-mounting the database files) and you  probably  won’t
              need to use the -n flag at all.

       -V n   Set   minimum   volume.    CD-ROM   drives   made  by  different
              manufacturers have different volume-setting methods.  On the Sun
              and  DEC CD-ROM drives, the volume settings range from 0 to 255,
              but only values of 128 or greater produce any  sound.   On  some
              third-party  drives,  though,  the  full  range  of  volumes  is
              available, in which case running with -V 0  is  desirable.   The
              default is 128.

       -C     Close  the  CD  device  when the disc is ejected.  You shouldn’t
              need to use this option unless you have unreliable hardware.

RESOURCES

       The following resources are available.  All resource names  begin  with
       "workman.".

       db.personal (string, default $HOME/.workmanrc)
              The   pathname   of   a   file  containing  personal  preference
              information about CDs: track volumes, playlists, and  the  like.
              This  resource  overrides the WORKMANRC environment variable, if
              present.

       db.shared (string, default $HOME/.workmandb)
              A  colon-separated  list  of  database  files.   This   resource
              overrides  the WORKMANDB environment variable and in turn may be
              overridden by the -D command-line option.  See  the  ENVIRONMENT
              section for more information about using lists of databases.

       initialVolume (integer, default varies)
              When  a CD is inserted for the first time, or WorkMan is started
              when there is already a disc in the drive,  the  current  volume
              level  is read from the drive.  On some systems the volume can’t
              be obtained, in which case  WorkMan  by  default  will  set  the
              volume to 100%.  This resource allows a different initial volume
              to be set.  Valid values are 0 through 100.

       smallButtons (boolean, default varies)
              If true, use small (16x16) icons for the main panel buttons.  If
              false,  use the old 32x16 icons.  If undefined, the program will
              try to use the correct size depending on how big the rest of the
              window  is,  which  can  be  controlled  with the XView "-scale"
              command-line option or by using a particular font.

       autoPlay (string, default "normal")
              Controls whether or not WorkMan will automatically start playing
              a  CD  when  it’s inserted.  Valid values are "never", "normal",
              and "always".  The default is to play the  CD  if  the  personal
              database  says  to do so, or according to the "Auto-play Unknown
              CDs" setting in the  Goodies  popup  if  the  CD  isn’t  in  the
              personal database.

       reverseThreshold (integer, default 2)
              Controls  the  amount  of  time a track needs to play before the
              "back" button will return to the beginning of the  track  rather
              than  jump  to the previous track.  Set it to a ridiculous value
              like 999999 if you always want the "back" button to  go  to  the
              previous track.

ENVIRONMENT

       WORKMANRC
              The  location  of  the  personal  preferences  file.   This file
              contains  information  such  as  the  default  volumes  of  CDs,
              playlists,  and  the  numbers of tracks to avoid playing.  It is
              usually not shared among several users of workman, since it does
              not contain any information about the CDs themselves.

       WORKMANDB
              Specifies  the  location  of  the  CD  database  file  or files.
              Several files may be specified by separating them with colons  a
              la  the  PATH shell variable.  For example, setting WORKMANDB to
              "$HOME/.workmandb:/home/user2/.workmandb" would cause workman to
              look  first in $HOME/.workmandb, then in /home/user2/.workmandb.
              New entries are  saved  to  the  first  database  in  the  list;
              modified  entries  are  saved to the database in which they were
              originally found, or the first database if the original  one  is
              not writable.

              This  variable’s  value  is  overridden by the workman.db.shared
              resource and by the -D command-line option.

SIGNALS

       WorkMan reacts to the following signals:

       SIGTTOU
              Jump to the next track.

       SIGTTIN
              Jump to the previous track.

       SIGUSR1
              Pause the CD (if it’s playing).

       SIGUSR2
              Play the CD (if it’s paused or stopped).

       SIGQUIT
              Stop the CD if it’s playing.

       SIGEMT Eject the CD.

       These signals, in combination with  the  pidfile  (see  the  -p  option
       description above), allow simple control of the CD player from programs
       or scripts, and are used by the -s option.

INTERFACE

       Most controls have spot help; hit the Help key over a control  to  find
       out  what  it  does.   If  you  don’t have a Help key, you can use the
       xmodmap (1) command to make one of your function keys  act  as  a  help
       key.  For example, xmodmap -ekeysym F1 = Help’ would make F1 bring up
       help messages.

       The following is a quick rundown of the controls; for  the  most  part,
       they’re pretty self-explanatory.

   The main window
       The  main  window  contains  the  basic  display and most commonly-used
       controls.  Moving from top to bottom and reading left to right,  you’ll
       see:

       The artist’s name.

       The  name  of  the  CD  or  the title of the currently-playing piece of
       music, if it takes up more than one track.

       The title of the current track.  This may occupy more than one  row  on
       the screen.

       The  track  selection  buttons.   Click  on  these  buttons to select a
       starting track, or to change to a new track if the CD is playing.

       The track-position slider.  This is updated once every 5 seconds  while
       the  CD  is  playing; you can also use it as a sort of jog dial to move
       around in a track.

       The volume slider.  Up is louder; down is quiet.

       The main controls (for lack of a better term.)  The buttons on the  top
       row  move  to  the  previous track, start playing, and move to the next
       track, respectively.  The bottom buttons pause, stop, or eject the  CD.
       When the CD is paused, playing may be resumed by clicking on either the
       pause button or the play button.  The  "back"  button  (the  upper-left
       one) goes to the beginning of the track if it has been playing for more
       than 2 seconds (see the RESOURCES section.)

       The "stop mode" selector.  When workman is done playing a  CD,  it  can
       stop,  play the CD over again (the Repeat setting), or eject it.  Click
       the MENU mouse button to select a stop mode; or  click  SELECT  on  the
       pull-down item to cycle through the available choices.

       The  "play  mode"  selector.   This determines the playing order of the
       tracks.  Two selections are always available: Normal, which  plays  the
       CD  from  start  to  end, and Shuffle, which plays the tracks in random
       order.  In addition, if any playlists have been defined, they’ll appear
       here as well.

       A gauge indicating how long the CD has been playing and how much longer
       is left.

       Three buttons that bring up the About, CD Info, and Goodies popups.

   The About popup
       There’s not much to say about this; it’s the credits with a  couple  of
       dumb pictures.

   The CD Info popup
       This  popup  is used to change information about a CD.  Again, from the
       top:

       The artist’s name.

       The title of the CD as a whole.

       A scrolling list of tracks and their titles.  This can be used to  view
       the  tracks on a CD, or to select tracks for editing using the controls
       below.

       The name of the track that’s selected on  the  scrolling  list.   As  a
       shortcut, if RETURN is typed after entering a track name, the scrolling
       list selection will automatically advance  to  the  next  track.   This
       allows  you  to  type  in all the track titles without using the mouse.
       The track title can contain several special symbols that alter the main
       window’s  display.   "//"  forces a line break; the text after the "//"
       will be displayed below the text before it.  WorkMan will automatically
       split  lines  that  are  too big for the main window.  If a line begins
       with "+", the main window’s disc title display  is  replaced  with  the
       text  after the "+" (useful for classical CDs, with several tracks that
       are part of the same work.)  If  a  line  begins  with  "@",  the  main
       window’s artist display is replaced with the text after the "@" (useful
       for compilation CDs with tracks by several artists.)  Both "+" and  "@"
       may  be  used alone on a line, in which case the program uses the title
       or  artist  from  the  previous  track.   If  a  line  is  empty,   the
       corresponding  line  from  the  previous track is used.  For example, a
       track title "@Orff//+Carmina Burana////Stetit Puella" will replace  the
       artist’s  name  with  "Orff",  the  CD  name with "Carmina Burana", and
       display two lines of track title, the second "Stetit  Puella"  and  the
       first copied from the first line of title from the previous track.  (If
       this sounds confusing, don’t worry -- play with it for  a  few  minutes
       and you’ll see how it works.)

       The "Continuation" selector.  If this is selected, the current track is
       a continuation of the previous one.  This is taken  into  account  when
       the  CD  is  played  in shuffle mode; if, for example, three tracks are
       part of the same piece of music (indicated by setting "Continuation" on
       the  second  and third tracks), they will be played together in shuffle
       mode.

       The "Don’t play" selector.  If this is selected, the program will avoid
       the  track  when playing the CD (though you can still play the track by
       selecting it directly using the main window’s track selection buttons.)

       The  default  volume  setting.   Use this if a particular disc or track
       should be played especially loudly or quietly.  If the  slider  is  all
       the way to the left, there is no default setting and the current volume
       will be used.

       The default play mode setting.  When  the  CD  is  inserted,  the  main
       window’s  play mode selector will be set according to this item.  "From
       List" will select the first playlist.

       The auto-play setting.  If this is selected, the CD will start  playing
       automatically  when it’s inserted (even if the main window is closed to
       an icon!)

       Apply and Reset buttons.  Apply will save the CD information  to  disk.
       Reset undoes any changes you’ve made.

       The  CDDB  button.  This induces a new CDDB request for the current CD.
       This is useful if the CDDB server was not reachable  when  the  CD  was
       inserted but is accessible now.

       A button to bring up the "Playlists" popup.

   The Playlists popup
       This  contains  the  controls for creating user-defined playlists.  Any
       number of playlists may be created, and they can be as long as you like
       (until your workstation runs out of memory, anyway.)  The controls:

       A scrolling list, from which you can select a playlist to edit or maim.

       The name of a scrolling list to create, or the new name for the current
       list.

       A  button  which  creates  a new list, using the name above or a boring
       system-generated one if no name has been entered.

       A button to rename the current list to whatever is in the Name field.

       A button to delete the current list.

       The tracks in the current playlist.  To add tracks, use the popup  menu
       (which  appears  when  you hit the MENU mouse button over the scrolling
       list.)  The popup menu is pinnable, so you can keep it  on  the  screen
       and select tracks quickly.

       A button to delete the currently-selected track from the playlist.

   The Goodies popup
       This  popup  contains  some infrequently-used controls and the settings
       for the CDDB support:

       The balance setting.

       The time display settings.  The running times to the left of the slider
       and  gauge  in  the  main  window  can display either elapsed time (the
       default) or remaining time; use these to choose.

       The auto-play setting for unknown  CDs  (CDs  which  you  haven’t  seen
       before,  or which you saw before but didn’t Apply to your database file
       from the CD Info window.)  If this is selected,  unknown  CDs  will  be
       played when they’re inserted.

       The  controls  for  the  A-B repeat function.  While the CD is playing,
       click the Start button to mark the start of a passage to  be  repeated;
       then  click  the End button when the CD reaches the end of the passage.
       Click on the "Repeat section of CD" item to start repeating the passage
       (and to stop, once you’ve started.)

       The  Split  button.   This button allows you to split any track in two.
       Select a track from the main window, and use the track-position  slider
       to  choose  the  split  point.  Then hit the Split button and the track
       will be divided.  You can do everything with the new section  that  you
       can  with  a  regular  track, including choosing a name.  Tracks may be
       split while the CD is stopped or paused, or while it’s  playing.   This
       is  useful  if  you wish to mark a section of a song, for instance; you
       can listen for the start of the section, and hit Split as soon  as  you
       hear it beginning.

       The  Delete  button.   Use  this to put a split-up track back together.
       You can’t delete the first section of a track.

       A button to scan for index marks.  If a CD already has sections  marked
       via index marks (usually indicated in the liner notes), hit this button
       to search for them.  Searching for marks can take a while depending  on
       the  particular CD.  Every time an index mark is encountered, its track
       will be split as if you’d used the Split button.

       CDDB control handles. Here you can  enter/change  the  protokol  to  be
       used, the CDDB server, including a port number, the email address to be
       sent as ident string to the server, and if necessary, the path  to  the
       CGI  script for HTTP requests and a proxy server. This information will
       be written to the ~/.workmanrc file and is described in detail  in  the
       workmanrc(5) manpage.

       A  button  to  save  the  current  settings  for  the CDDB access. This
       initiates a rewrite of the ~/.workmanrc file.

FILES

       $HOME/.workmanrc
              Default location of personal preferences  file.   See  WORKMANRC
              under "Environment" as well as  workmandb (5).

       $HOME/.workmandb
              Default  location  of  CD  database  file.   See WORKMANDB under
              "Environment" and  workmandb (5).

BUGS

       Workman depends on an existing audio hardware  connection  between  the
       CD-ROM  drive  and the sound card. It cannot rip the CD content playing
       it independently via PCM.

       The program leaks memory with XView 3.0 (but not 3.0.1 or  higher)  due
       to  a  library  bug.   The  leak  only  occurs while the About popup is
       displayed.

       Due to another library bug, the program will dump core when the default
       volume  slider is wiggled back and forth under Solaris 2.  (The Sun bug
       ID is 1097908.)

       There is no way to choose a playlist other than the first  one  as  the
       default.

       Some  of  the  options  and environment variables should be done with X
       resources or a properties sheet.

       The database should have an index of some sort for quickly  looking  up
       CDs,  since  the  current  linear  search  can get a little slow on big
       databases.

       Interaction  with  data  CDs,  especially  ones  that  are  mounted  as
       filesystems, is spotty at best.  The program should unmount a CD before
       ejecting it.

       The CD Info popup’s interaction with mouseless mode is annoying.

       If the volume manager (Solaris 2.2) is running and the "eject"  program
       is  used  to  eject  the CD, a message about loading an unnamed CD will
       appear on the console.  There’s nothing WorkMan can do to avoid that.

       The program’s name is a pretty moronic pun.

AUTHOR

       Steven     Grimm.      Original     author.      Dirk     Foersterling.
       <milliByte@DeathsDoor.com>   Current  maintainer.   Feel  free  to send
       comments, criticisms, suggestions, or unadulterated praise.

       Here used to be the names of different port’s authors. Please refer  to
       WorkMan’s HTML documentation for that information.

                     V1.3b - $Date: 1999/09/03 12:38:21 $           workman(1)